Sarah Toce
PrideFest, the 501(c)3 organization behind Seattle’s Pride festivals, is proud to announce PrideFest Capitol Hill, on Saturday, June 29, and PrideFest Seattle Center, on Sunday, June 30. This is our 18th Annual PrideFest celebration, and this year aligns with the fiftieth anniversary of Pride in Seattle.
PrideFest Capitol Hill on Saturday, June 29 will feature three stages across six blocks of Broadway, as well as a Makers’ Village and other activations within Cal Anderson Park. Headlining the main stage are local favorites like Bacon Strip, House of Moschino, EmpeROAR Fabulous!!!, AZN Glo, Lashes, BeautyBoiz, Miss Texas 1988, LCN!, and Champagne Honeybee. Like every year, the Rainbow Stage features local organizations and community groups, including Entre Hermanos, Kings: A Drag Show, a Latine Showcase, Rain Country Dance Asssociation, #BlackHotSunday, POCAAN, and Pride Asia. On the Family and Youth Stage, PrideFest is thrilled to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the world’s first Drag Queen Storytime with the queen who hosted in 2014, Aleksa Manila. Seattle’s LGBTQ+ Center will also be holding a Queer Youth Pride celebration at this stage, followed by a dance party with C89.5 DJs.
PrideFest Seattle Center on Sunday, June 30 will take place following the downtown Pride Parade and feature three stages with over one hundred artists. Headlining the main stage is Trinity the Tuck, the winner of RuPauls’ Drag Race All Stars Season 4, as well as Bright Light Bright Light, Purple Lemonade, BeautyBoiz, and Damag3, among many others, all peppered with a walk through the decades to highlight all the progress the LGBTQIA+ community has made in the last fifty years of Pride in Seattle. The popular Fountain Stage will feature Travvy Trav, Papi Sii, DJ Dana Dub, Chelsea Starr (PDX), and Sailor Hank. The Mural Stage, the band stage, will now integrate drag acts between bands to keep the stage going all day long, and will feature acts like Roulette Delgato aka Big Burr, LüChi, Amelia Day, Dark Chisme, Bruno Baewatch, and much more.
PrideFest’s organizational mission statement, as well as the tagline for this year’s PrideFest “Pride50” theme, is “Honor the Past, Celebrate the Present, and Fight for the Future,” which in translation for the organization means an emphasis on the community’s shared history, a celebration of LGBTQIA+ arts, and advocacy to fight for all of our communities. According to PrideFest Executive Director Egan Orion: “This year more than ever, PrideFest provides a chance to bring our communities together for a positive, uplifting series of events that help bring us closer together. Fifty years of Pride in Seattle is an incredible milestone, but it doesn’t happen in a silo. The political climate of the country, especially as it relates to the queer and trans communities, makes it more necessary than ever for us to gather, to be together, to affirm each other, and work together to fight for a better future for all. For us, Pride50 is as much about the future as it is about the past.”
PrideFest doesn’t require a ticket or fee to enter either of its festivals. They are both free events.
PrideFest has no association with Capitol Hill Pride, run by Charlette LeFevre and Philip Lipson, or the ticketed events at The Cuff and Queer/Bar advertised as “PrideFest”.
For complete information about PrideFest events in June, please visit www.seattleprideguide.com and www.seattlepridefest.org
